The Saving L.A. Project (SLAP) mobilizes on key issues that protect community interests and taxpayer dollars

Lucille Saunders discusses LaBrea-Willoughby Coalition’s infrastructure lawsuit

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Editor’s Note: The Saving L.A. Project will hold another Town Hall meeting on Saturday Oct. 4 at the Charo Community Development
Center at 4301 E. Valley Blvd. in the El Sereno neighborhood. The time will be announced soon.

 
 
During a town hall
meeting Saturday in East L.A., Saving L.A. Project (SLAP) members voted to take positions
on eight hot topic issues and is now looking for volunteers to mobilize
the community activists across the city to help make a difference: 

SLAP OPPOSES THE
TAKEOVER OF THE SOUTHWEST MUSEUM BY THE AUTRY NATIONAL CENTER

City Hall is rushing to shut
off public debate and close the deal to loot the Southwest Museum of its valuable collection and turn
this historic facility — the city’s oldest museum — into community
college classrooms using bond money from the November ballot measure
put up by the LACCD.The Autry National Center in Griffith Park is lookiing
to rebuild and expand its lackluster museum dramatically and has cut
a back room deals with LACCD to get $12 million to convert the Southwest
into class space — an action that will rob the Mt. Washiington-Highland
Park area of its most notable landmark. The deal betrays the commitment
made by Jackie Autry, widow of the western movie star Gene Autry, to
maintain the Southwest as a museum.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
has broken his promise to protect the Southwest as a museum. Councilman
Jose Huizar has done nothing to stand up for his constituents. Councilman
Tom LaBonge has spearheaded the Autry’s campaign which has spent large
sums of money to get heavyweight lobbying support from City Hall insiders
Bill Delvac and George Mihlsten of Latham & Watkins and PR man Steve
Sugerman, the admitted felon. Please contact Heinrich Keifer <hkeifer101@sbcglobal.net> who is helping to put together
a team that will drum up support from community groups, conduct email
and phone campaigns and develop other strategies to force the Autry
to live up to its commitments. 

SLAP  OPPOSES THE  LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY COLLEGE
DISTRICT BOND ISSUE

Because of the LACCD’s complicity in this back room deal,
instigated by Community College Board member Mona Field, SLAP also decided
to oppose the $3.5 billion bond issue, the district’s third in recent
years. 
 
SLAP  SUPPORTS THE CULTURAL HISTORICAL DISIGNATION OF GRIFFITH
PARK

Kris Sabo won the full support of SLAP for a motion to support
the efforts of Save Griffith Park and the heirs of Griffith Jenkins Griffith who donated the
land for L.A.’s “Central Park” to get the city to declare
the park a cultural-historical preservation zone which will give it
badly needed protections from the city’s intention to turn it into an
amusement park and tourist trap. Councilmember
LaBonge also took heavy criticism from SLAP activists for his role in
pushing for other developments in Griffith Park even as he postures
as its guardian. Contact ksabo@wildwildwest.org who will help coordinate with other groups. 
 
SLAP JOINS  THE LA BREA-WILLOUGHBY COALITION  

Headed by Lucille Saunders, the lawsuit  is aimed at forcing
the city to carry out required studies of traffic and other infrastructure
needs before approving new developments. Every neighborhood in the city
is being negatively impacted by developments approved in ignorance –
the city hasn’t made these required studies for a decade. Lucille Saunders 
laid out the issues involved in the lawsuit and won support Saturday
from the L.A. Neighborhood Council Coalition as well as SLAP. More than
a dozen community groups have now joined the suit and the support of
as many as possible will help strengthen the campaign to bring sanity
and good information to the city’s future development. Forms to join
as Plaintiff’s for the lawsuite are on the website.  They must
be completed and faxed the September 11.   Contact Lucille
Saunders and the website  at labreacoalition@gmail.com

SLAP SUPPORTS THE  “NO HOME DEPOT” CAMPAIGN IN SUNLAND-TUJUNGA

Like the Southwest Museum issue, the Sunland-Tujunga
“No Home Depot” campaign is rooted in the local community
but raises concerns that need to be understood and supported citywide.
City Hall’s failure to treat local communities with respect and to engage
them seriously in decisions that affect them is at the heart of what’s
broken in L.A. and what SLAP is really about — hanging together to
make this a great city. Cindy Cleghorn and Lidia Grant  and other
Sunland-Tujunga activists talked about how the city has gone to extraordinary
lengths to trample on the community despite the City Council’s agreement
that a full environmental impact report is needed before a final decision
is made. However, Home Depot has hired at great expense the usual hardball
lobbyists and PR manipulators to leverage City Hall. Contact Cindy Cleghorn
at Cindy@cmprintmail.com. 

 
SLAP OPPOSES PROPOSITION B
Jose Aguilar won SLAP support for efforts to defeat Proposition B on
the November ballot, a so-called affordable housing measure that undermines
decades of voter-approved policies that ensured local community involvement
and a significant share of low-rent units for senior citizens. Contact joseaguilarcd14@hotmail.com 
 
SLAP OPPOSES THE $7 BILLION LAUSD BOND AS POORLY PLANNED AND NOT QUALIFIED TO PASS WITH 55 PERCENT APPROVAL

George
Buzzetti pointed out many flaws in the bond issue which was doubled in
size at the last minute and raised a number of serious issues that
should make it ineligible for approval by only a 55 percent majority
instead of two-thirds.

SLAP SUPPORTS NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCILS FIGHTING FULL FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE OF ALL MEMBERS

The
City Council’s attempt to require all 1,600 NC members to fill out
financial disclosure forms annually as the price of winning the right
to open City Council files was rejected as a cynical ploy to undermine
and confuse NC members. NCs have no power to approve or reject
legislation and are only advisory so at most their members should to do
no more than DWP officials who make decisions on huge contracts and
under a new rule only have to sign a declaration saying they don’t have
a conflict.

We would like to set up a SLAP town hall meeting in other parts
of the city at times and places convenient to local community groups.
If you have a confirmed a site available for at least 100 people, please
contact me at ron@ronkayela.com to set up a meeting in your area. 
 
We can only change L.A. if we work together and support each other to
break the pay-to-play political culture that is serving no one but the
special interests.